Note B — LXXXI. To Mother Catherine-Charlotte de Crémaux de la Grange.

The Little Sisters, of whom St. Jane Frances herself deemed it sometimes necessary to increase the numbers, have long since been superseded by small secular schools. The needs of the times, and the solicitations of the Bishops, under direct obedience to whom St. Francis wished his daughters always to remain, impelled the Mother Superiors of various monasteries, including that of Annecy, to deviate from the original design of the founders in so far as to open schools. But where this departure from the original Rule is not found necessary, the houses continue to be purely contemplative. It is interesting to note that on the deathbed of the Venerable Mother Chappuis, her daughters desiring to know her dying wish in reference to their own school, she said: "It neither interferes with the silence, the regularity, nor the solitude of the Sisters, and is neither against the Rule, nor against the spirit of the Institute." We are told that at Troyes, where this venerable servant of God died, the Community, apart from the few engaged in teaching, was absolutely ignorant of what passed in the school, knowing neither the names nor the numbers of the school-children.